The ubiquity of standard digital music formats has allowed online music stores to grow considerably over recent years. Monitoring of musical tastes and buying habits of consumers has allowed development of various software applications that analyse consumer music selections and listening habits so as to be able suggest new music that is likely to appeal to a user. Conventional software tools are also able to identify music files that complement each other, e.g. to played in succession to a user, based on musical genre, style, age, as well as user rankings.
Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) for generating, editing and mixing music recordings and tracks into a final piece of music are also well known in the music industry. Increasing computational power of conventional computing equipment has seen a significant rise in the use of software DAWs, allowing a variety of conventional music production hardware to be recreated in software format, such that music production tools are more widely available to professional producers and amateurs alike.
Using DAW's it is possible to manually create an almost endless variety of tracks that can be mixed together into a final piece of music. However, even with all these tools to hand, finding the seed of inspiration that can be worked into a final piece of music can be a frustrating and time-consuming endeavour. It is widely acknowledged that listening to music can inspire creation of new music. Even if the bare bones of a new piece of music are found, it can take significant further experimentation to build on a basic sound or sample/loop so as to work up to a cohesive piece of music.
Furthermore, for amateurs in particular, it may be difficult to isolate or recreate a particular sound or loop once it has been heard in a song in a form that can be worked on.